Individual and conjunctive operation of tidal lagoons along the west coast of the UK

Guo, Bin, Ahmadian, Reza ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2665-4734 and Falconer, Roger A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5960-2864 2025. Individual and conjunctive operation of tidal lagoons along the west coast of the UK. Journal of Ocean Engineering and Marine Energy 10.1007/s40722-025-00420-x

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Abstract

The conjunctive operation of multiple Tidal Range Schemes (TRSs) along a coastline, particularly where tidal phasing is appreciable, may partially offset the power output intermittency when TRSs are considered in isolation. This study investigates the individual and conjunctive operations of three prospective tidal range schemes: North Wales Tidal Lagoon (NWTL), West Somerset Lagoon (WSL) and Swansea Bay Lagoon (SBL). Each lagoon was assessed individually and then conjunctively to explore their potential interaction on the hydrodynamic impact and power output. Under individual operation, the tidal velocity magnitude across the NWTL impoundment typically increased by 0.1–0.5 m/s, in contrast to the decreased maximum current velocity observed within the WSL and SBL basins. The analysis of open boundary placement in lagoon modelling underscores the importance of employing a sufficiently large model domain for accurate simulation of TRSs. In the conjunctive operation of WSL and NWTL, as well as WSL and SBL, interactions between the lagoons were found to be minor. However, the duration with no power generation for lagoons running independently was reduced from 2.5 to 3.75 h to less than 1.5 h, demonstrating the feasibility of delivering near-continuous tidal power through the conjunctive operation of WSL and NWTL. This study is the first to explore the hydrodynamic interactions of conjunctive tidal lagoon operations in the UK, demonstrating their mutual impacts and the potential of coordinated operation to reduce intermittency.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Engineering
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	2198-6444
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 August 2025
Date of Acceptance:	14 July 2025
Last Modified:	10 Sep 2025 11:54
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180517

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